Saturday, January 28, 2012

28 January 1967 - The Great Scottish Cupset

On 28 January 1967, Second Division Berwick Rangers delivered one of the greatest upsets in Scottish football by knocking Glasgow's Rangers out of the Scottish Cup.

At the time, Rangers were the defending Scottish Cup champions and were sitting in second place, while Berwick, playing under manager Jock Wallace, were in tenth place of Division Two. Rangers had won all three of the teams' previous meetings by comfortable margins of 3-1 (twice) and 4-0.

Still, a club record crowd of 13,365 turned out at Berwick's Shielfield Park and were rewarded with an unlikely result. The visitors dominated the early going and earned an overwhelming ten corner kicks by the 30-minute mark due to their attacking play. But Berwick claimed the advantage just two minutes later, with inside forward Sammie Reid scoring off the post.

Not content to sit on their lead, Berwick exchanged attacks with Rangers for the remainder of the match and nearly extended the margin with a handful of close chances. Rangers, for their part, scrambled forward in desperation but could not find the equalizer they needed and fell, 1-0.

It was a humbling loss for the Glasgow giants, marking their first defeat to a Second Division side and their first opening round elimination from the Scottish Cup in thirty years. Unfortuately for Berwick, they failed to capitalize on the win, losing to Hibernian in the next round.

In 1970, Wallace moved to Glasgow as an assistant coach for Rangers, then took over as their top man from 1972 to 1978, winning three Scottish Cups in the process, then again from 1983 to 1986.